Epidendrum boricuarum Hágsater & Sánchez Mata 1993 GROUP Difforme
Plant and Flowers in situ St Lucia
Photos by © Roger Graveson and his The Plants of Saint Lucia Webpage
Photo by © Richard Gautier and His Guadeloupe Orchid Page
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Common Name The Boricuas Epidendrum [Indigenous name of The Puerto Rican People, pre Colombian]
Flower Size 1/8" [3 cm]
Found in Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and Guadeloupe in humid broadleafed forests at elevations of sealevel to 1000 meters as a small sized, hot to warm growing epiphyte with reed-like, somewhat laterally compressed, not ancipitose, flexuous stems carrying 6 to 12, elliptic to narrowly ovate, obtuse, basally clasping leaves that blooms in the summer on a terminal, subumbellate, short, 1 to 8 flowered inflorescence carrying simultaneously opening flowers that are fragrant at night and smell of cucumbers.
"Epidendrum boricuarum is part of GROUP Difforme which is characterized by the caespitose, sympodial plants, fleshy, pale green to glaucous leaves, apical inflorescence, sessile, rarely with a short peduncle, single flowered to corymbose, without spathaceous bracts, fleshy, green to yellowish-green, rarely white flowers. The species is very similar to E. difforme Jacq. but can be separated by the slightly laterally compressed stems, the lip slightly arcuate, transversely oblong in outline, the base shallowly cordate, the calli separated and parallel, the lateral lobes semiorbicular, symmetrical, the midlobe very short and wide, almost 4 times as wide as long, and the strongly arcuate column. Epidendrum difforme has strongly laterally compressed, ancipitous stems, the lip strongly recurved above the middle, cordiform in outline, the base deeply cordate, the calli approximate and diverging, the lateral lobes more or less semiorbicular but somewhat oblique, the midlobe subquadrate, slightly wider than long, and the column straight to very slightly arcuate. Epidendrum floridense Hágsater is also similar but has terete stems and entire or very shallowly lobed lip, which is either reniform, emarginate or with two small, rounded apical lobes." Hagsater etal 1993
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Icones Orchidacearum 2 plate 114 Hagsater 1993Drawing fide; Icones Orchidacearum 2 Plate 133 Hagsater 1993 see recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum 2 Hagsater & Salazar 1993 drawing fide; Icones Orchidacearum 2 Plate 167 Hagsater 1993 see recognition section; An Orchid Flora Of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands Ackerman 1995 drawing ok; Icones Orchidacearum 3 Plate 321 Hagsater 1999 see recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum 4 Plate 401 Hagsater 2001 see recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum 4 Plate 429 Hagsater 2001 see recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum 8 Plate 827 Hagsater 2006 see recognition section; Orchid Flora of the Greater Antilles Ackerman 2014 drawing good
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